


Autumn

by GStK



Category: Kagerou Project
Genre: M/M, Post-Summertime Record
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-15 23:52:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2248047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GStK/pseuds/GStK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autumn

**Author's Note:**

> Second-person POV. Vague ending spoilers. Short for the anniversary of Summertime Record.  
> Inspired by [明日へ](http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=41707691) by 蒼ハル. Haruka publishes an art book, "Kagerou Days," which gets an anime.  
> Shintaro composes the music for it.

Mornings, you spend sketching in your hospital bed, watching the world turn from blue to white out the far window. You get visited a lot, by the kids on their way to school, by your best friend, who always makes time for you. You never mind. You need others like you need to breathe, and that will never change, not even when summer takes its passage into fall.

You're no longer the silly boy who laughed with his friends and didn't understand. You remember now, the things you went through before, the things you've been through since. You remember who you were, even when your friends don't. You remember – everything, and so does he.

There are drawings you take extra time on, works you come back to days later to keep touching up and perfecting. It's not what you used to do, always in such a rush to finish your sketches and show them off. You take your time now, because you can. Because you don't want to forget.

He helps you fill in the blanks, and soon enough, it's complete.

Soon enough, _it's time to go_.

You're off.

* * *

Afternoons, you spend in lonely playgrounds, the sky turning to red and the shadows chasing you down. You sit on swings that have been too small for you for years, swings that creak in quiet complaint. You talk. He listens. You reach for his hand. He lets you.

Your anthology sells well. They make a show. You're on the news. They call you an adult and say they expect great things. But are you really that? Being better means getting the childhood you never had. You might be getting older, but there's so much that's passed you by.

You take him places. He takes you. To the park, to the cinema, to the beach. There's one afternoon you spend hours at the playground, chasing him around until the adults are staring and he's moaning that he's about to die. Another, you go on your first real date, and he's so nervous and you can't stop smiling and he looks like he _wants_ to die. But it's you, and you're together.

There's days you spend entirely in bed, curled around each other, when the sadness and the lost time seep too far into his skin. There's days you spend outside, anywhere but in, when the word on your lips is not “ _home_ ” but “ _hospital_ ” and you never want to think again. There's days you spend alone.

But it's you.

* * *

Evenings, you spend watching the cityscape merge into a stunning kaleidoscope, close to your fingertips but just yet out of reach. You've never known the nightlife, but you could, you think, make your pulse thrum neon. You like the idea of a city brought to life by the technology in its veins. That is, after all, the only place a flash dancer could go.

His is not the nightlife, but the night is his life all the same. There's countless times you find yourself sitting in bed and nodding off, Tono in your arms and his back turned to you. Sometimes you wake up and find him asleep there, his keyboard his idea of a pillow. Those are the times you get to see him vulnerable, gentle as anything when you rouse him and bring him to bed. Those are the times you think you love him most. But then there are the nights that end with you waking and him still there, still awake, still tense as anything. You worry.

Nightmares. You both have them. His, you think, must be red, and he clutches at you in his sleep and whispers names with such despair. It's worse to wake him up. Yours are black, white, evil grins and breaking apart and 200 IVs in your arm. What makes the difference is, when you wake up now, he's there.

They throw a homecoming party for you one evening. You end up having to help clean up, but that's okay; you're too happy as it is. When you go to find him again, he's asleep with his music, but it's easy enough to get him up. _It's time to go_. But before you do, he lets you listen, and – now you understand, what all those sleepless nights were about.

He writes his prettiest songs for you, you know.

* * *

Mornings. You'll spend them buried between the sheets, watching the curtains sway and the shadows dance as the morning turns from blue to white. Your dinosaur nightlight will flicker off, and later but sooner, his eyes will flicker open, too. He won't see you at first, but when he does, he'll smile. You'll wrap your arms around him and tug him in.

He'll say it.

He'll say it again and again, and you'll know.

 _Welcome home_.


End file.
